Angels Hasten Rauch Parting

CHICAGO â€”  A highly regarded player showered and left Saturday’s Angel-Chicago White Sox game well before the final out, was ripped by his general manager and immediately put on the trading block.

No, Raul Mondesi, the newest Angel with the spotty past, was not up to his old tricks.

The player in question was Chicago pitcher Jon Rauch, who was roughed up for five runs and 10 hits in 3 2/3 innings of the Angels’ 5-1 victory in front of 25,050 in U.S. Cellular Field.

The Angels bunched six of their hits in a five-run fourth inning and got another superb pitching performance from right-hander Aaron Sele, who gave up one run and four hits in 6 1/3 innings to help the Angels end a four-game losing streak.

Rauch, a 6-foot-11 right-hander who is the tallest player in major league history, was demoted to triple-A Charlotte after the game, but he wasn’t around for White Sox General Manager Ken Williams to inform him.

Furious at the behavior of one of the organization’s top prospects, a 2000 Olympic hero who was selected minor league player of the year by Baseball America in 2000, Williams fined Rauch and essentially gave him his walking papers.

“He severely hampered his chances of ever pitching for the White Sox again,� Williams said. “If any team has any interest in Jon Rauch, they should contact me.�

About an hour after the game, Rauch called ESPN 1000, the Chicago station that airs White Sox games, and apologized to his teammates. He called his departure “a miscommunication,� saying that since he knew he was called up Friday for only one start, he was under the impression he could leave when his work was done.

“I just wanted to get out of there and be with my family,� Rauch said. “I don’t want to bad-mouth the team or make them look bad, by any means.�

While the White Sox sorted out their problems, the Angels were finally able to get through an entire day without one. After losing four consecutive one-run games, three in the opponent’s last at-bat, the Angels gained some much-needed breathing room with their fourth-inning rally.

Sele’s strong start, in which he struck out six, walked two and gave up a solo home run to Paul Konerko in the seventh, provided a nice cushion for a bullpen that was so overworked Manager Mike Scioscia refused to use primary setup men Francisco Rodriguez and Scot Shields with a tie score Friday night.

Sele, who is 4-0 with a 2.09 earned-run average since Scioscia inserted him into the rotation in place of Ramon Ortiz on May 1, was pulled after Konerko’s homer in favor of Shields, who threw 1 2/3 scoreless innings. Rodriguez struck out three of four batters in the ninth.

“It’s good to see the hits fall in and to start executing in the batter’s box,� Scioscia said. “What was important is even though we ran into some outs early, we didn’t stop being aggressive.�

Chone Figgins was thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double in the first, and Robb Quinlan was thrown out at the plate trying to tag and score on Figgins’ fly ball to shallow center in the third.

The Angels got to Rauch in the fourth, a rally that began with singles by Vladimir Guerrero and Jose Guillen. Jeff DaVanon, who had hit a ground-rule double to right-center field in the second, hit another ground-rule double, this one to left center, for a 1-0 lead.

Bengie Molina’s sacrifice fly to right made it 2-0, and Casey Kotchman’s double to right-center field made it 3-0. Quinlan singled to left, advancing Kotchman to third, and stole second. Adam Kennedy’s groundout made it 4-0, and David Eckstein capped the rally with a run-scoring single.

The White Sox threatened in the bottom of the fourth, loading the bases with two outs, but Molina, the catcher, picked off careless Carlos Lee at second base, and Lee was eventually tagged out in a rundown to end the inning.

The game provided some interesting matchups, especially when Eckstein, the Angels’ 5-foot-7 shortstop, and Figgins, a 5-8 third baseman, stood in to face Rauch, who is an inch taller than Randy Johnson of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“With Eck and Figgy, you could put one of them on top of the other’s shoulders and they could look him in the eye,� Scioscia said. “There’s no hiding the fact that he’s big. He’s huge. But eventually, no matter how tall you are, you have to get the ball into good zones. Any mistakes he made, we got good cuts at.�